


the clock is ticking (and we are going nowhere)

by cvptainmarvel



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel
Genre: 2x11 spoilers, Angst, F/M, but i like, daredevil s2 spoilers, ep 0.380, kastle - Freeform, like direct quotes, loveeeee, mentions of matty, slight stalkerness frank
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cvptainmarvel/pseuds/cvptainmarvel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank should go and Karen should write.  Time is moving but they are not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the clock is ticking (and we are going nowhere)

Karen's body was frozen, her hands hovering over the keyboard, skin illuminated by the glow of a blank document on an open laptop. She moved her left hand until it hit her coffee cup and lifted it up to her lips. It was empty. Karen sighed and put it down, moving her hands back to their original position. And she was a statue once again.

The clock on the wall across from her read 10:43 if she squinted hard enough. Karen looked back at her screen. She moved her fingers down to the keys and pushed down on them in an order that made sense in her head, but only debatably coherent on paper or digital document.

_Who is the Punisher?_

Karen erased the sentence the moment it was completed.

_Who was the Punisher?_

Another sigh.

_Father. Loving husband. And good friend._

Karen could almost hear Frank's voice in her head.

 

* * *

 

 

They had been sitting in that diner. It was dark outside and the light inside was yellow, Karen's skin and hair had been the same shade, but her lips had been blood red. And that was all that Frank could focus on. Frank's military cut was dark against his forehead, a shadow shown on his jaw, and red and purple bruises dark on his grim face.

Karen had said something along the lines of not loving Matt and Frank had scoffed, though it was true. "Ma'am, can I ask you, do you guys always serve bullshit here or is that just her, huh?" he had asked their waitress as she brought coffee over. He was wrong, but Karen didn't know how to tell him.

 

But now, when he was saying it in her head from beyond the grave, he was dead right. She deleted everything on the page for the ninth time that night. The clock read 10:51.

 

* * *

 

Frank felt like shit, to say the least. The flames behind him meant starting over. But the memories carried on with the smell of gasoline on his clothes. Frank knew better than anyone that starting over never really means starting over.

He was at a red light with no clue where he was going. The blinking clock on his dashboard read 10:51. He had been driving for 25 minutes due south from the fire, and now he didn't know if he should keep going. 

 

* * *

 

 

Karen's lips were red. That was the clearest image in his mind. She had said, "He's the kind of man who hurts people. Not like you, but... he damages them." He had told her to keep him. He had said that the people who can hurt you are the ones you keep. And he had been right... then. But Frank wasn't sure if he was right now.

The clock read 10:54 and the light had turned green and red twice already. He couldn't let her go. Frank wasn't lying when he said he'd give up his arm to feel what he felt with his wife again. And he felt it now, no arm needed. And he couldn't lose it again. Frank took a left turn.

 

* * *

 

The clock read 11:09. Karen was making a list.

 _1\. He called me ma'am._  
_2\. He lost his children and wife._  
_3\. He's a veteran._  
_4\. I know what he's doing is wrong._  
_5\. He only hurts bad guys._  
_6\. He's been hurt._  
_7\. The entire city has been conspiring against him._  
_8\. I love him._

Karen delete the last line.

 _1\. He called me ma'am._  
_2\. He lost his children and wife._  
_3\. He's a veteran._  
_4\. I know what he did was wrong._  
_5\. He only hurt bad guys._  
_6\. He's been hurt._  
_7\. The entire city has been conspiring against him._

Karen knew what story she had to tell. She had to write the story of a hero. The hero that lived on inside the people of Hell's Kitchen. The hero people could only begin to see inside themselves because of the Devil and the Punisher.

 

* * *

  
The clock read 11:09 when Frank turned off the engine and stepped out of his truck. He hadn't driven here, not knowingly. But leaning against his car, he could just about see the fourth story window across from him. There was a woman with her skin glowing, and her eyes rimmed with red, and her lips stained like the color of the setting sun like they had been on the night when he felt someone have a hold on his heart again. But he couldn't see all this.

 

* * *

 

Karen squinted at the clock again, her eyes watering from hours staring at a screen. 4:23. The sun was coming up and she was finally done. The printer behind her rattled as it came to life stamping four thousand odd words onto clean fresh paper. Karen looked out of her window. The sky was pink and she felt eyes on her, but couldn't see where they were. Frank. She was kidding herself trying to look for him.

 

* * *

  
Frank checked his watch. 4:23. Hell's Kitchen was still cold, but not biting like it was at midnight. Either way, Frank didn't mind. He saw Karen look out and it felt like a warm breeze. She was searching and it broke his heart knowing it wasn't for him. But he was warm, leaning against his truck, feet cemented to the pavement after five hours, and Karen tucking her hair behind her ear as she closed her laptop and tucked it into her bag.

 

* * *

  
5:01. Karen was long gone from the office. Frank couldn't move from his spot. Something about leaving reminded him too much of torching his house the night before. And he couldn't do that to Karen. But it was light. People were starting to fill the streets in suits, and heels, and phones to their ears. Hell's Kitchen had gone from a home to a business district. And right now Frank needed a home.

The keys were fished out of his pocket and the pickup roared to life. He looked into the empty office on the fourth floor for one last time. Frank drove off, with not so much as a look in his rear-view mirror, cap low over his eyes and fists clenched on the wheel.


End file.
